Hobbes Thomas Quotes & Sayings

And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause — Thomas Hobbes

When two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are said to be CONSCIOUS of it one to another; which is as much as to know it together. — Thomas Hobbes

In the very shadows of doubt a thread of reason (so to speak) begins, by whose guidance we shall escape to the clearest light. — Thomas Hobbes

The Pacts and Covenants, by which the parts of this Body Politique were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that Fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation. — Thomas Hobbes

It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together. — Thomas Hobbes

It is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an account; wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles. — Thomas Hobbes

Men looke not at the greatnesse of the evill past, but the greatnesse of the good to follow. — Thomas Hobbes

The power of a man is his present means to obtain some future apparent good. — Thomas Hobbes

Such truth, as opposeth no man's profit, nor pleasure, is to all men welcome. — Thomas Hobbes

Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness. — Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes's politics are fitted only to promote tyranny, and his ethics to encourage licentiousness. — David Hume

To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. — Thomas Hobbes

Christian Kings may erre in deducing a Consequence, but who shall Judge? — Thomas Hobbes

A democracy is no more than an aristocracy of orators. The people are so readily moved by demagogues that control must be exercised by the government over speech and press. — Thomas Hobbes

When it happeneth that a man signifieth unto us two contradictory opinions whereof the one is clearly and directly signified, andthe other either drawn from that by consequence, or not known to be contradictory to it; then (when he is not present to explicate himself better) we are to take the former of his opinions; for that is clearly signified to be his, and directly, whereas the other might proceed from error in the deduction, or ignorance of the repugnancy. — Thomas Hobbes

And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever. — Thomas Hobbes

Competition of praise inclineth to a reverence of antiquity. For men contend with the living, not with the dead. — Thomas Hobbes

Ignorance of naturall causes disposeth a man to Credulity, so as to believe many times impossibilities: for such know nothing to the contrary, but that they may be true; being unable to detect the Impossibility. And Credulity, because men love to be hearkened unto in company, disposeth them to lying: so that Ignorance it selfe without Malice, is able to make a man bothe to believe lyes, and tell them; and sometimes also to invent them. — Thomas Hobbes

Liberty, to define it, is nothing other than the absence of impediments to motion — Thomas Hobbes

Desire of praise disposeth to laudable actions. — Thomas Hobbes

Curiosity draws a man from consideration of the effect, to seek the cause. — Thomas Hobbes

If I had read as much as other men I would have known no more than they. — Thomas Hobbes

Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command. — Thomas Hobbes

Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice; with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter. — Thomas Hobbes

The law is the public conscience. — Thomas Hobbes

The Imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature imbued with the faculty of imagining) by words, or other voluntary signs, is that we generally call Understanding; and is common to Man and Beasts. — Thomas Hobbes

The right of nature ... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life. — Thomas Hobbes

There be as many persons of a king, as there be petty constables in his kingdom. And so there are, or else he cannot be obeyed. But I never said that a king, and every one of his persons, are the same substance. — Thomas Hobbes

Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. — Thomas Hobbes

For naturall Bloud is in like manner made of the fruits of the Earth; and circulating, nourisheth by the way, every Member of the Body of Man. — Thomas Hobbes

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death. — Thomas Hobbes

From the same it proceedeth,that men gives different names, to one and the same thing, from the difference of their own passions: As they that approve a private opinion, call it Opinion; but they that mislike it, Haeresie: and yet haeresie signifies no more than private opinion; but has only agreater tincture of choler — Thomas Hobbes

Prophecy is many times the principal cause of the events foretold. — Thomas Hobbes

And therefore in geometry (which is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind), men begin at settling the significations of their words; which settling of significations, they call definitions, and place them in the beginning of their reckoning. — Thomas Hobbes

In a Democracy, look how many Demagogs that is how many powerful Orators there are with the people. — Thomas Hobbes

The law is more easily understood by few than many words. For all words are subject to ambiguity, and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is multiplication of ambiguity. Besides, it seems to imply (by too much diligence) that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass of the law. — Thomas Hobbes

I think, therefore matter is capable of thinking. — Thomas Hobbes

ANTI-ZIONISTS, last of all, exhibit a distaste for certain words. It was Thomas Hobbes who, anticipating semantics, pointed out that words are counters, not coins; that the wise man looks through them to reality. This counsel many anti-Zionists seem to have neglected. They are especially disturbed by the two nouns nationalism and commonwealth, and by the adjective political. And yet these terms on examination are not at all upsetting. — Milton Steinberg

Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past. — Thomas Hobbes

For such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned, yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves, for they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance. But this proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of any thing than that every man is contented with his share. — Thomas Hobbes

Leisure is the mother of Philosophy — Thomas Hobbes

The reputation of power IS power. — Thomas Hobbes

Immortality is a belief grounded upon other men's sayings, that they knew it supernaturally; or that they knew those who knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally. — Thomas Hobbes

Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad ... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social. — Thomas Hobbes

No man can be judge to his own cause. — Thomas Hobbes

For five years he [Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)] served as personal secretary to, yes, Francis Bacon. In fact, I've noted over a course of years that the job of a secretary can be utterly fulfilling just in case one's boss happens to be Francis Bacon. — Daniel N. Robinson

Curiosity is the lust of the mind. — Thomas Hobbes

If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies. — Thomas Hobbes

There is no action of man in this life that is not the beginning of so long a chain of consequences as no human providence is high enough to give a man a prospect in the end. And in this chain, there are linked together both pleasing and unpleasing events in such manner as he that will do anything for his pleasure must engage himself to suffer all the pains annexed to it. — Thomas Hobbes

For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice. — Thomas Hobbes

Power as is really divided, and as dangerously to all purposes, by sharing with another an Indirect Power, as a Direct one. — Thomas Hobbes

The first author of speech was God himself, that instructed Adam how to name such creatures as He presented to his sight ... — Thomas Hobbes

Man is distinguished not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion, from all other animals. — Thomas Hobbes

And if a man consider the original of this great Ecclesiastical Dominion, he will easily perceive, that the Papacy , is no other than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire , sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: For so did the Papacy start up on a Sudden out of the Ruines of that Heathen Power. — Thomas Hobbes

It's not the pace of life I mind. It's the sudden stop at the end. — Thomas Hobbes

Let a man (as most men do) rate themselves as the highest Value they can; yet their true Value is no more than it is esteemed by others. — Thomas Hobbes

There are very few so foolish that they had not rather govern themselves than be governed by others. — Thomas Hobbes

For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old wives' fables in England concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night. And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power. — Thomas Hobbes

Therefor I doubt not but, if it had been a thing contrary to any man's right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, 'that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to two angles of a square,' that doctrine should have been, if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of geometry suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able. — Thomas Hobbes

Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair. — Thomas Hobbes

A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men's belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies. — Thomas Hobbes

From whence it follows, that were the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced. — Thomas Hobbes

Geometry is the only science that it hath pleased God hitherto to bestow on mankind. — Thomas Hobbes

Corporations are "worms in the body politic" — Thomas Hobbes

Can it then be doubted, but that God, who is infinitely fine Spirit, and withal intelligent, can make and change all species and kind of body as he pleaseth? But I dare not say, that this is the way by which God Almighty worketh, because it is past my apprehension: yet it serves very well to demonstrate, that the omnipotence of God implieth no contradiction. — Thomas Hobbes

I mean by the universe, the aggregate of all things that have being in themselves; and so do all men else. And because God has a being, it follows that he is either the whole universe, or part of it. Nor does his Lordship go about to disprove it, but only seems to wonder at it. — Thomas Hobbes

Religions are like pills, which must be swallowed whole without chewing. — Thomas Hobbes

For all laws are general judgements, or sentences of the legislator; as also every particular judgement is a law to him whose case is judged. — Thomas Hobbes

As, in Sense, that which is really within us, is (as I have said before) only Motion, caused by the action of external objects, but in appearance; to the Sight, Light and Color; to the Ear, Sound; to the Nostril, Odor, &c. — Thomas Hobbes

It is many times with a fraudulent Design that men stick their corrupt Doctrine with the Cloves of other mens Wit. — Thomas Hobbes

He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himselfe, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind; — Thomas Hobbes

However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who brought the concept of a social contract between citizens and governments sharply into political thinking, paving the way for popular democracy and constitutional republicanism. — Simon Mainwaring

Corporations are may lesser commonwealths in the bowels of a greater, like worms in the entrails of a natural man. — Thomas Hobbes

The passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason. — Thomas Hobbes

And because the constitution of a mans Body, is in continuall mutation; it is impossible that all the same things should alwayes cause in him the same Appetites, and aversions; much lesse can all men consent, in the Desire of almost any one and the same Object.
Good Evill
But whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire; that is it, which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, evill, And of his contempt, Vile, and Inconsiderable. For these words of Good, evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and evill, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the Person of the man (where there is no Common-wealth;) or, (in a Common-wealth,) From the Person that representeth it; or from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the Rule thereof. — Thomas Hobbes

For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself — Thomas Hobbes

From what cause the rite of baptism first proceeded is not expressed formally in the scripture, but it may be probably thought to be an imitation of the law of Moses concerning leprosy, wherein the leprous man was commanded to be kept out of the camp of Israel for a certain time, after which time being judged by the priest to be clean, he was admitted into the camp after a solemn washing. And this may therefore be a type of the washing in baptism, wherein such men as are cleansed of the leprosy of Sin by Faith, are received into the church with the solemnity of baptism. — Thomas Hobbes

For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to content by Battle is sufficiently known ... So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE. — Thomas Hobbes

And where men build on false grounds, the more they build, the greater is the ruine — Thomas Hobbes

The flesh endures the storms of the present alone; the mind, those of the past and future as well as the present. Gluttony is a lust of the mind. — Thomas Hobbes

No man is bound by the words themselves, either to kill himselfe, or any other man. — Thomas Hobbes

For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels. — Thomas Hobbes

This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them. — Thomas Hobbes

In the state of nature profit is the measure of right. — Thomas Hobbes

To say that God is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect there is no God at all. What alleges he against it, but the School-divinity which I have already answered? Scripture he can bring none, because the word incorporeal is not found in Scripture. — Thomas Hobbes

Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves. — Thomas Hobbes

So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death. And the cause of this is not always that a man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has already attained to, or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. — Thomas Hobbes

A great leap in the dark — Thomas Hobbes

Good and Evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different: And diverse men differ not only in their judgment, on the senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, but also of what is conformable, or disagreeable to Reason, in the actions of the common life. Nay, the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself, and one time praiseth, that is, calleth Good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth Evil. — Thomas Hobbes

No man's error becomes his own Law; nor obliges him to persist in it. — Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes said that man is a wolve for anothe one. It seems to me that this became the basic foundation ideology for the Marxians. Though, it seems also inspired in Max Weber's ides, but actually, Weber reject it. According Stjerno, who quote Weber's idea about man (2005, p. 37), that for Weber, action is social when the individual gives it a subjective meaning that takes account of the behaviour of other and lets his ouw course of action, (Weber; 1978 (1922). Social relationship,said Weber, developed when many actors took into account of the hehaviour of the actions of others. A relationship is symmetrical when each actor gives it the same meaning. However, complet symmetry, Weber maintained, Stjerno added, was rare. Generally, the parts of a social relationship orient their actions on a rational basis,zweckrational - goal-oriented, but in part; they are also motivated by their values and sense of duty,(Stjerno, Steinar: 2005) — Steinar Stjerno

And whereas many men, by accident unevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour; they ought not to be left to the Charity of private persons; but to be provided for, (as far-forth as the necessities of Nature require,) by the Lawes of the Common-wealth. For as it is Unchariablenesse in any man, to neglect the impotent; so it is in the Soveraign of a Common-wealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain Charity. — Thomas Hobbes

The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous opinion. — Thomas Hobbes

So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime. — Thomas Hobbes

Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money. — Thomas Hobbes

As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body — Thomas Hobbes

The Enemy has been here in the night of our natural ignorance, and sown the tares of spiritual errors. — Thomas Hobbes

And in these four things, opinion of ghosts , ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear , and taking of things casual for prognostics , consisteth the natural seed of religion ; which by reason of the different fancies, judgments and passions of several men, has grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another. — Thomas Hobbes

And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon generall, and infallible rules, called Science; which very few have, and but in few things; as being not a native faculty, born within us; nor attained, (as Prudence,) while we look after somewhat else. — Thomas Hobbes

We are not to renounce our senses and experience, nor (that which is the undoubted Word of God) our natural Reason. For they are the talents which he hath put into our hands to negotiate, till the coming again of our blessed savior, and therefore not to be folded up in the napkin of an implicate faith, but employed in the purchase of justice, peace, and true religion. For though there be many things in God's Word above Reason
that is to say, which cannot by natural reason be either demonstrated or confuted
yet there is nothing contrary to it. — Thomas Hobbes